CS92/ED89: The Educational Software Seminar
Notes: February 3rd, 2003
Roger B. Blumberg, Brown University
http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs092/2003/cs92.feb3.html
What Education is
Reconciling Liberty and Democracy in Education; or, Why Philosophy
Matters Even in Software
What nutrition and reproduction are to physiological life, education is to social life.This education consists primarily in
transmission through communication. Communication is a process of sharing experience till it
becomes a common possession. It modifies the disposition of both the parties who partake in it.
John Dewey, from Democracy and Education
We'll begin today by discussing
an excerpt from Eamonn Callan's 1997 book
Creating Citizens: Political Education and Liberal
Democracy that seems to become more relevant each year.
We'll consider the following questions:
- What is your reaction to Callan's "Brave New World" scenario,
and what (if anything) do you believe it has to do with education?
- In your own educational experience (how) has the conflict
between liberty and democracy been addressed?
- (How) Do the uses of technology in school reflect
assumptions about the purpose of education"?
- How can/should the design of technologies for children
in school reflect a philosophy of education?
John Dewey's Experience and Education
We'll begin our discussion of Dewey's 1938 book with
Susannah's comments and questions, as well as the
questions raised by Emily Bolon (
who presented Dewey in CS92 in the spring of 2000).
- Meeting with sponsoring teacher
- Revised project description
- Begin project page(s)
- Gather materials, schedule observations, and begin the
design process.
- Note the dates for storyboard presentations
If you look at the revised project descriptions from past years
(they are included on the project pages) you will see that different
teams have structured them differently, some with more and some
with less detail. But here are some kinds of information
that you should consider
making clear in the revised project descriptions:
- The audience for your program
- The school and teacher with whom you'll be working
- The computers for which you'll be designing the program
- How the program will likely be used by the students/teacher.
- The tentative schedule of team meetings and
classroom observations as the project proceeds.
- A timetable for the project, including benchmarks like
the storyboard, prototype evaluation, testing and final
installation
- The qualities you are looking for in an authoring tool/
environment for this project.
- The distribution of responsibilities (if known) for
accomplishing your work.
- Your initial thoughts about the project and your
expectations/aspirations about what you hope to accomplish
with the program you're building.
- Whatever else you would like followers of your project to know.
For next time: Read Israel Scheffler's "Computers at School?"
(1986). Arrange a team meeting and contact your sponsoring teacher.
Begin your revised project description after you've met with and
discussed the project with your sponsoring teacher